


Hanami's Soldier

by vivvav



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Gen, Hanami Amamiya-Niijima, Ryoko Amamiya-Niijima, The AFR Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:52:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14942019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivvav/pseuds/vivvav
Summary: When Hifumi and Ryuji start joking around with Ren's youngest daughter, she gets a strange new fixation.





	Hanami's Soldier

“Aunt Hifumi, why is the skull on Uncle Ryuji’s back wrong?”

Hifumi’s face lit up. She was so used to seeing Ryuji’s back tattoo — a large skull with shogi pieces for teeth — that she didn’t think much of it. It was just some impulsive thing he had done years ago, but she thought it was a very sweet gesture. Sometimes she entertained the idea of getting one to match (nothing so large, obviously, maybe a small piece on her arm), but Hifumi already hated needles, so letting a tattoo gun get under her skin was completely out of the question.

It wasn’t a question she got asked often, but it was one she loved answering. Yoshio asked a few years ago, and she jokingly said it was symbolic of how Ryuji let Hifumi do all the talking for him when they met new people. He took it at face value, and Hifumi got it in her head to make up a different reason whenever asked and see if she could get away with it. Now here they were at a pool party at Haru’s home with all their friends, and Ryuji was doing a few laps in the pool, the shogi-skull on his back plain for all to see. Which meant that the children of their friends were seeing it for the first time. Right now, it was Ren and Makoto’s oldest, Ryoko, who wanted to know.

“Well you see, Ryoko, when he was getting the tattoo, the artist’s needle broke” Hifumi said. “But you know how impatient your Uncle Ryuji is, and he wanted to get the tattoo done right then and there. So to fill in the teeth, we took out my shogi set, dipped the pieces in ink, and pressed them against his back.”

“Hm…” Ryoko looked at Ryuji, who was climbing out of the pool, then back at Hifumi. “I think you’re lying, Aunt Hifumi.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If that’s how you finished the tattoo, wouldn’t all the kanji be backwards?”

Ryoko stared down Hifumi, who failed to produce a satisfactory response. After ten seconds of silence, Ryoko walked away to wade in the shallow end of the pool, and Hifumi shot Makoto a sour look.

“It’s no fun how smart your daughter is” Hifumi said.

“That’s what you get for lying to children” Makoto replied with a smirk.

Hifumi turned up her nose and stormed off.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the pool, Ryuji had just climbed out of the deep end and was toweling off, joining Ren and his youngest daughter Hanami for lunch. Hanami wasted no time asking the question on her mind.

“Uncle Ryuji, how come the skeleton on your back looks so weird?”

“What, this?” Ryuji turned around and pointed to his tattoo. “His teeth are shogi pieces.”

“Yeah, why?”

“What, you don’t know?” Ryuji turned back to Hanami with a sharkish grin on his face.

“Know what?”

“That’s what folks’ teeth look like when they get old” Ryuji said. “I don’t want my tattoo to be wrong and stuff when I become an old man, so I made sure it’d look the way I will when I’m a geezer, so it’ll finally match.”

“Really!?” Hanami looked at Ren in amazement.

“Sure” Ren said. “Why not?”

“But wait…” Hanami scratched her head. “Granma an’ Granpa’s teeth aren’t like that, and Boss’s aren’t either.”

“Sure they are” Ren said. “You just haven’t noticed.”

It was around this time that Hifumi showed up to the conversation. Hanami took notice of her and stood up in her chair excitedly.

“Aunt Hifumi, have shogi pieces been teeth this whole time!?”

“Excuse me?” Hifumi gave Hanami a baffled look.

“Y’know…” Ryuji winked at Hifumi. “Like my tattoo, which shows how someone’s teeth turn into shogi pieces when they get old.”

“Oh!” Hifumi’s eyes lit up. After her earlier failure with Ryoko, she was eager for a second chance to have some fun. She looked down at Hanami. “Most shogi pieces are just made of wood, but in the professional games I play, they’re all teeth of old shogi masters that have fallen out.”

“Really?” Hanami stared wide-eyed at Hifumi. “But don’t they wanna keep their teeth?”

“It’s a great honor to have your teeth used in shogi” Hifumi said. A little voice in the back of her head told her she shouldn’t be spreading this kind of misinformation about her profession, but she quickly squashed it in the name of mischief. “After all, all the best armies are made of teeth. Have you ever heard the story of Cadmus?”

Hanami shook her head.

“Cadmus was a hero in Greek mythology who founded the city of Thebes. On one of his adventures, he slayed a mighty dragon and planted its teeth in the ground like seeds. But instead of plants, an entire army of soldiers grew out of the soil instead.”

“Wow!” Hanami started tonguing her own loose front tooth, wiggling it back and forth in her mouth. “So are you gonna have your teeth used in matches when you’re an old lady?”

“Of course!” Hifumi chuckled. “By letting my teeth be part of somebody else’s army, it’s like I’ll be playing shogi even when I’m not.”

“Cool…”

* * *

“Where is it?”

Ryoko was lying on her stomach in her and Hanami’s bedroom, feeling around under her bed where she kept her board games. Hanami watched by the shogi board in the middle of the room, all set up save for a single missing pawn. Hanami was handling the missing piece much better than Ryoko was. She wasn’t really in a rush to begin. Truth be told, she didn’t really like playing shogi with Ryoko since her big sister always beat her, but it was Ryoko’s turn to pick what they’d play so she had to abide by it.

“Didja find it yet?” Hanami asked.

“Does it LOOK like I found it!?” Ryoko pushed out from under the bed, sitting up and glaring at Hanami. “What did you do with it!?”

“Nothin’.”

“Are you sure about that?” Ryoko stood up and put her hands on her hips. “Remember all those checkers you lost because you were doing an arts and crafts project with them?”

“I was makin’ a Buchi-Kun for Mommy’s birthday!” Hanami pouted. “I needed black circles!”

“Hanami, did you lose the pawn or not!?”

“I told you, no!” Hanami crossed her arms. “How do you know YOU didn’t lose it?”

“Because I never lose stuff.” Ryoko turned up her nose.

“Well you’re the one who’s always practicin’ and who likes to put the pieces away…” Hanami scratched her head. “So that’d make you the last person who touched the game. Meanin’ you’re prob’ly the one who lost the pawn.”

“This isn’t getting us anywhere!” Ryoko stomped over to a stack of drawing paper and grabbed a sheet and a crayon. She marched over to the shogi board and picked up a pawn, then slammed the paper down, flattening part of it out on the empty spaces.

“What’re you doin’?” Hanami asked.

“I’m making a new pawn out of paper.” Ryoko started tracing the pawn, some of the yellow crayon coloring the piece’s edges.

“You can’t make a shogi piece outta paper” Hanami said. “It’s gonna be all flat and floppy!”

“Well, if we can’t find the real pawn, it’ll have to do.”

Hanami hummed, tonguing her tooth as she watched her sister start to replicate the kanji on the pawn pieces. It was very loose, and her Dad had said earlier that morning that it’d probably fall out by the end of the day. It was really bugging Hanami. She’d been pushing the tooth around for a few days now and it served as a constant distraction.

And then an idea came into Hanami’s head. A way to kill two birds with one stone.

Hanami reached into her mouth with her fingers and started pulling on her tooth. She let out a few grunts as she did so, feeling a slight pain in her mouth with each pull.

“What the-“ Ryoko looked up from the counterfeit shogi piece she was making. “What are you doing!?”

“Almoft… goddid…”

Hanami winced as she ripped out the tooth, her tongue rushing to fill in the gap, tasting a little bit of blood. She gave Ryoko a victorious grin with a notable gap in it, raised her hand above her head, and threw the tooth down on the shogi board. It bounced a little, leaving a speck of blood on the board’s surface before coming to rest on top of Ryoko’s king.

“EW!” Ryoko scooted back from the board. “What is wrong with you!?”

“Nothin’ anymore!” Hanami happily poked her tongue through the gap where her tooth had been.

“Why did you do that!?” Ryoko stared at Hanami with a mix of disgust and horror. “What is wrong with you!?”

“That can be our new piece!”

“That’s disgusting!” Ryoko rose to her feet and pointed at the tooth. “Get rid of that thing and clean the board! We can’t use a tooth as a shogi piece!”

“But that’s what all the pros do!” Hanami protested.

“No they don’t!”

“Yuh-huh!” Hanami crossed her arms and smirked. “Aunt Hifumi told me so! And I think she knows a li’l more about shogi than you do, Ryoko!”

“She was lying, you dummy!” Ryoko pinched the bridge of her nose. “Aunt Hifumi was playing a trick on you!”

“You’re just jealous that I know somethin’ about shogi that you don’t!”

“That’s not what’s going on!” Ryoko glared at her sister. “I just don’t wanna play with a disgusting dirty tooth that was just in your mouth! It’s unsanitary!”

“Fine then!” Hanami picked up her tooth and huffed. “We can play with your boring paper piece and I’ll just find somethin’ better to do with my tooth!”

“Like what?”

“Like… uh…” Hanami looked around the room for inspiration, her eyes falling on a potted poppy Haru had let her take home the last time the girls visited her garden. “I’ll plant it!”

“‘Plant it’?” Ryoko snickered. “What are you gonna do, grow a teeth tree? Teeth aren’t seeds, Hanami.”

“I know that!” Hanami put her hands on her hips. “I’m gonna grow an army!”

“What” Ryoko asked flatly.

“That’s another secret Aunt Hifumi taught me! If you plant dragon teeth, you can grow an army!”

“You’re not a dragon!”

“Yeah, but still…” Hanami held her tooth close to her eye, scanning it like it were a precious gem. “My tooth’s a lot littler than a dragon’s, but I bet I could grow a whole soldier!”

“That’s not possible!”

“You’ll see!” Hanami grabbed the poppy by the root, pulling it and a handful of dirt out of the pot and tossing them onto the floor. “I’m gonna grow a soldier and he’s gonna be my best friend and do whatever I say!”

“MOOOOOM!” Ryoko opened the door to the room as she started yelling. “HANAMI’S BEING DUMB AND MAKING A MESS!”

“Ryoko…” Makoto entered the room with a displeased expression. “What have I told you about calling your sister names?”

“‘Dumb’ isn’t a name,” Ryoko said, “it’s an adjective!”

“It’s a mean adjective.” Ren popped his head in. “Be nice to your sister.”

“But she’s throwing around teeth and getting dirt everywhere!” Ryoko pointed at Hanami. “Look!”

Hanami was humming a song with her hands in the pot, kneading the tooth into the soil.

“Hanami, what are you-“ Makoto took a step forward and noticed the poppy on the floor. “Is that the flower Aunt Haru gave you?”

“Huh?” Hanami turned around and waved with dirt-covered fingers. “Hi Mommy! Hi Daddy!”

“I told you we shouldn’t have let her keep it in her room” Makoto whispered to Ren.

“Hi, Bunny.” Ren walked over to Hanami and crouched down, looking inside the pot. “What are you up to?”

“Plantin’ my tooth.”

“Your tooth?”

“Yeah!” Hanami grinned at Ren, pointing to the space where it'd been. “It fell out! See!?”

“I do see.” Ren nodded. “But why are you burying it?”

“I’m gonna grow a soldier like in Aunt Hifumi's story!”

“Oh.” Ren stood up.

“‘Oh’?” Makoto’s eyes narrowed and she approached Ren. “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“Not exactly.” Ren whispered in Makoto’s ear. “Hifumi told Hanami the story of Cadmus sewing the dragon’s teeth while making up stories about teeth as shogi pieces. I didn’t really say anything to convince Hanami that it wasn’t true.”

“So now our little girl is trying to grow an army from her tooth!?”

“Well, at least a soldier.”

“Hanami…” Makoto crouched down. “You know you can’t actually grow army men from teeth, right?”

“Yuh-huh!” Hanami’s brow furrowed. “Aunt Hifumi said so!”

“Aunt Hifumi was telling a joke.”

“She was?” Hanami scratched her head. “It didn’t sound like a joke.”

“Well, it’s not a the type of joke you’re used to where somebody asks a question and then gives a funny answer.”

Makoto sighed as Hanami stared at her in confusion. She was a very trusting girl who rarely thought ill of anybody, and Makoto wasn’t sure how to explain that somebody would tell a lie just to find amusement from her believing it, especially a loved one. She didn’t want Hanami to lose her trust in people, but she also didn’t want Hanami to feel stupid for falling for Hifumi’s trick. Makoto was having trouble coming up with a way to broach the subject, so she just decided to settle for an old parenting standby.

“It’s a grown-up joke. You’ll get it when you’re older.”

Hanami mulled this over for a moment before looking back up at Makoto with a dissatisfied look.

“I’m gonna go back to growin’ my soldier now.”

“What?” Makoto stared at Hanami dumbfounded. “But it’s impossible!”

“You don’t know that.”

“Hanami, I-“

“Makoto.” Ren put his hand on Makoto’s shoulder. “Just let it go.”

“But she-“

“It’s not worth getting upset over.” Ren gave a wink and that old Joker-y smile that Makoto hadn’t seen in a long time. “Just let me handle this one.”

* * *

A few days later, Ryoko was woken by a series of quick pokes.

“RYOKO, LOOK!” Hanami’s voice cried out. “LOOK, LOOK, LOOK!”

“You got ten seconds before I go back to sleep” Ryoko said with her eyes closed. “This better be important.”

“My soldier sprouted!”

“What!?”

Ryoko’s eyes shot open. It took a moment for the world to come into focus, but when it did, Hanami was standing by her bed excitedly, her pot now having a tiny green dome poking out through the surface of the soil.

“What is that!?”

“It’s an army helmet!” Hanami tapped the helmet’s top. “See? He’s protectin’ himself while he’s still growin’!”

“That’s impossible!” Ryoko reached out to the pot, her fingers going for the helmet. “Let me take a look at that!”

“NO!” Hanami pulled the pot back swiftly, holding it above her head out of Ryoko’s reach. “You can’t pluck him now, he’ll stop growing!”

“That’s not-“ Ryoko cut herself off. She was still waking up so her brain wasn’t running at 100% yet, but it was hard to argue with Hanami’s logic. Yes, their mom had said you couldn’t grow a soldier from a tooth, and she was almost never wrong, but Hanami did have a point when she said that Hifumi knew a lot about shogi, and Ryoko had never seen Makoto actually beat Hifumi in a match, which meant that it was possible that Hifumi just knew some things Makoto didn’t when it came to shogi and armies and maybe even teeth.

Still, that didn’t mean this situation had stopped bothering her.

“This is all so dumb!” Ryoko climbed out of bed. “What are you even gonna do with a soldier!? You’re not an army officer!”

“Not yet!” Hanami gave her freshly gap-toothed grin. “But now I will be! This is gonna be the first soldier in the Hanami Army!”

“You can’t have an army with one soldier! Who’re you gonna battle!?”

“What are you talkin’ about?” Hanami put the pot back on her nightstand. “I don’t wanna battle anyone.”

“That’s what soldiers do!”

“Soldiers follow orders.” Hanami picked up a glass of water from her nightstand and poured it into the soil. “And I’m gonna order my soldier to play games with me and help me brush my hair and reach stuff in high places I can’t.”

“That’s now what you do in an army!”

“That’s what you do in the Hanami Army!”

Ryoko started to get a headache. Everything about this was completely stupid, but somehow Hanami was making sense. But the sense was still dumb. Ryoko flopped down onto her bed and screamed into her pillow.

Outside the girls’ room, Ren and Makoto were listening in on the conversation. Makoto looked at Ren with trepidation.

“I don’t see how this is solving the problem.”

“Just trust me, Queen.” Ren grinned at his wife. “This is just phase one.”

* * *

Over the next few days, Ren would sneak into the girls’ room and replace the item in Hanami’s pot every day. First he added a little sprout and perched the plastic soldier helmet on top of it. Then he replaced it with a slightly larger sapling. Then the next day he added a little plastic rifle with its barrel sticking out of the soil. Then he had a cocoon made of leaves with the helmet perched on top replace everything. And then, the day after that, Hanami woke up to find a toy soldier with his feet stuck in the soil, saluting her.

“HE’S FINALLY HERE!”

Hanami grabbed the pot and dashed out of the room, immediately seeking Makoto. She found her at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.

“MOMMY, LOOK!” Hanami held the pot above her head. “IT’S A SOLDIER, JUST LIKE AUNT HIFUMI SAID!”

“I see…” Makoto looked at the toy uneasily. She had no idea what Ren was playing at indulging this fantasy. “That’s… nice.”

“Yeah!” Hanami held the pot close to her chest. “Now I need a really big glass of water and a really little breakfast!”

“What for?”

“So my soldier can grow to full size!”

“He already is full size” Ren said as he entered the room.

“Nuh-uh!” Hanami pointed at Makoto. “He’s supposed to be tall and strong like Mommy! Instead he’s all little like a toy!”

“That’s because he is a toy.” Ren sat down at the table. “Think about it, you planted your baby tooth, right?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, you can’t expect an adult man to grow from a baby tooth, right?”

“I guess not…” Hanami’s mood rapidly deflated.

“Hey, cheer up.” Ren rubbed Hanami’s head. “At least you got a free toy out of it. That’s pretty cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…”

“Just think about it. You grew a toy from your own tooth. Most kids have to buy a toy with their allowance or wait for their birthday, but you did that all by yourself! I bet you’re the first kid in the world who’s ever done that.”

“You think so?” Hanami’s mood seemed to pick up a little, and she looked up at Ren with awe in her eyes.

“I can say with 100% confidence that nobody’s ever grown a toy by planting their tooth before.” Ren lifted the soldier out of the soil, presenting his dirt-covered boots to Hanami. “Now why don’t you go clean this guy off?”

“Ok!” Hanami took the soldier from Ren and ran off to the bathroom, back to her usual happy self. Ren sat down at the table and grinned at Makoto.

“I told you I’d take care of it.”

“Yes, you did.” Makoto was unamused. “You realize now you have to buy her a toy every time she loses a tooth, right?”

“She’ll grow out of it soon enough.” Ren shrugged. “I mean, she should figure it out by the time she starts school. How many teeth can she lose by then anyway?”

A high pitched yawn came from the other side of the room. Ren and Makoto looked over to see a barely-awake Ryoko walking towards them.

“Good morning, Ryoko” Makoto said.

“Good morning, Mom.” Ryoko yawned again. “Good morning, Dad.”

“Morning.” Ren nodded. “You want some breakfast?”

“Yes please.” Ryoko nodded. “Also, can I have a pot?”

“A pot?”

“Yeah. Full of soil. Like Hanami’s.”

“Why?” Makoto asked.

“Because…” Ryoko opened her mouth and ran her tongue over her front teeth. “I think I’ve got a loose tooth.”

Ren felt the kind of chill up his spine that could only come from the Niijima Glare.

**Author's Note:**

> Been a hot minute since I posted anything. Been working on a few things at once, got a kinda big-ish story coming soon I hope.
> 
> This is just a cute little idea Hureno and I had. Weirdly you can thank me randomly deciding to rewatch Young Justice for this. If Aqualad hadn't mentioned the myth of Cadmus in the first episode it wouldn't have been fresh on my mind and I don't think I'd've been inspired enough to write this.
> 
> For you folks on timeline patrol, this takes place shortly before Chapter 2 of The Amamiya-Niijima Family.


End file.
